What Color Was Your Friday?
In the Village of Peninsula, population 602, you can have whatever color Friday you’d like. We are small businesses—micro businesses actually—and when you support us, you support your neighbors and friends.
Archive for Musings
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Friday Musings
This media has given me the opportunity to connect with people all over this fine planet. It’s become the backyard fence, as we tappity tap our wishes, lies and dreams. I am sipping my morning coffee (with steamed milk and foam), considering the day, and listening to the sounds of folks from the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad getting ready for the Polar Express.
I have a slab of porcelain ready to carve, this year’s ornament to design and gallery things to think about. We’ve had our first snow of the season, and the air is fresh and clear. The sun is shining on the beautiful Cuyahoga Valley. It’s all good.
What’s happening in your neck of the woods?
Musings on a Day for Dads
When I was going through my Dad’s papers, I came across a slip of paper that he had given me shortly before he died. It’s a poem he had found and had liked.
To a Daughter Leaving Home
When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle,
loping; along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life,
screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.
by Linda Paston
My dad’s note to me, written in his distinctive barely legible scrawl: “I thought of you when I read this today. I remember Mom’s filming me running after you– A lovely memory. Love–Dad”
On this day, I am grateful to the man who, with my Mother, gave me life; and who shared his thoughts on paper.
I am grateful to the man with whom I share my life, and who is ever present. He who understands that some things just need to be kept.
Frosty Morning
It was a frosty morning in the Village of Peninsula, Ohio, population 602. The daffodils, bravely emerging from their winter’s home, were blanketed with a coating of crystals. Daffodils are a hearty lot; the buds seem to be fine.
Spring is here, though; breeding male gold finches are sporting their yellow feathers, as if to say, “Pick me!” Peepers are filling the evenings with their songs; and then there’s the quality of the light! The clear light of early spring in NE Ohio is unmistakable. And for this, among so many other things, I am so grateful.
What is spring like in the place you call home?
Living Fully in These Times
None of us are strangers to the intensity of these challenging times on Planet Earth. We can make choices how we deal with internal and external circumstances.
This is what I do: I try to live my life in kindness, with an open heart. I love my family and friends, and try to remember to let them know. I love this life and try to honor it. I know that, that which lets me see and feel the challenges and horrors on the planet, also lets me experience the incredible beauty. I am keeping on keeping on.
What is life like for you? What choices have you made? As always, feel free to leave me a comment, or a stone, (o), to let me know you’ve stopped by.
Musings on Making Things
Someone asked how long it takes to complete a piece. It’s not about the time in the studio at all; it’s about the experiences in one’s life. Each piece is a result of the culmination of a lifetime of experiences. You just show up and get to work.
The process is like that—showing up and putting energy in the process. One thing at a time. Just. Like. That. It’s not often dramatic. You just show up, sit down, and begin.
Mid-Winter Musings
It’s mid-winter in my world. And right now it means cold, gray, and snowy. As I sit at my kitchen table, tappity tapping my thoughts, I watch the snowflakes and the temperature fall. A chance of flurries covers the ground. I understand the term, “the dead of winter.”
I reach for my cup of hot morning brew, thankful for it’s warmth. A bird, then two, then 6 come to the feeders. In the woods, I hear spring songs.
January in the Cuyahoga Valley
This is the time of year when I get a wee bit tired of the gray and cold and snow. Nature seems to sense that we could use a respite. The quality of light has changed since the Solstice, and the birds are singing songs that remind us of the promise of changing seasons. And this, my friends, is welcome, as we continue our march to Spring.
Musings On 1.1.11
The calendar tells us that it’s the first day of another year, a rhapsody in 1′s. The numeral one, with it’s vertical stance, is much like the vertical nature of the landscape in January. Colors are soft and muted, occasionally punctuated by the bright green of lichens on a tree. We’ve had a thaw for the past couple of days, one that has reduced the mountains of snow to puddles of mud. The dogs are happy, sloshing in the wet dirt; they have no idea why they have been relegated to the kitchen until they dry. We’re expecting temperatures below freezing tonight; and the cycle continues.
Motherly Musings
Nancy Friday wrote, “When I stopped seeing my mother with the eyes of a child, I saw the woman who helped me give birth to myself.” My mom, who died 12 years ago, birthed me under a fog of drugs, my dad pacing in the waiting room. The doctor emerged, and informed him that all 20 digits were present and accounted for; this pleased my Dad greatly. Babies were taken from their mothers in those days, and scheduling feedings and sleep was encouraged. My mom wanted desperately to nurse me, but she was told that it would not be safe since she had a heart condition. (Really) Days later, she returned home with this free-spirited number two daughter, who, from the day she was born, didn’t play by the rules.
Last year, I wrote about my mom in this space. I ask your indulgence as I repost it now.
I have mixed feelings on this day of days. I am reminded that I am a motherless child and that there are so many things I would ask my mom if she were here. I can still hear her voice on the phone, “Hi, Doll.” And I can see the young mother with 2 daughters making grilled cheese sandwiches to go with the tomato soup that came out of the red and white can. I think of the woman who witnessed this daughter’s journey for independence and to find her own way. The woman who didn’t understand the choices her daughter made and had her own struggle to accept them. The woman who loved her granddaughters unconditionally.
I remember my mother in her ICU bed, telling me that I had taught her a lot about being a mother, and thanking me. I remember one of her gifts to me when I didn’t know where to be—at her bedside or at home with my husband and daughters. She said, “I love you. Go home. With my blessing.” I came home on February 15th to my husband playing outside with our daughters. There was a sign on the door. Happy Valentine’s Day. They had moved the day on the calendar so we could celebrate it together. On this day, as I walked with the dogs, I thought of the sweetnesses that I have experienced in these woods, of #1 daughter being a pony or a unicorn, galloping through the woods, hair flying as her spirit soared. Of #2 daughter stopping at each Jack-in-the-Pulpit to make sure Jack was home. “Hello, Jack,” she said each and every time. Of my mother-in-law, reminding me that I am her other daughter, her daughter-in-love.
Happy Mothers’ Day to us all. Those of us who are one, who made one, and who have or had one. Take a moment to cherish those you love.
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Thanks to these fine women, among many others, who have shared their thoughts on this day, we who do the very best we can with the tools we have at any given time:
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